Q: Years ago, my husband and I made an agreement with our son that he would take over the family farm once he was able to do so and when we were preparing ourselves for retirement. It is a good agreement and all of us are committed to it.
The problem is that now that our boy is in Grade 11 and nearing the completion of high school, he has decided that what he is learning in high school is not relevant to what is expected from him on the farm.
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He wants to quit school. I do not want our boy to drop out of school before graduation. He has done well and I think that finishing could be to his advantage.
I have to admit that few of the courses he is studying directly apply to life on the farm. What do you think?
A: High school does little to prepare us for any of our professions. I am not sure why farming should be any different.
Your son is not likely to master the art of calibrating his dad’s seed drill while strolling the high school halls.
But not much in high school is directly applicable to the lawyer you hire to oversee your judicial obligations, little of what is learned in high school is useful to the doctor caring for you and your family, and almost none of it is directly applicable to the local mortician.
The real merit of public education is that it teaches us how to learn. And that is essential.
Today’s successful farmer has a multitude of skills from agronomy, husbandry, heavy-duty machine operation and diesel mechanics to plumbing, weather forecasting and stock market analysis.
Most of those are skills that the farmer learns by continuing his education after high school, studying on his own or talking to his parents.
A good farmer is someone who has shown that he is capable of learning. That is what your son’s high school has to offer him.
He is in high school to learn how to learn and he is farming to learn how to farm. It’s that simple.
